Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA27482 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 19 Mar 2000 23:43:57 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.20000319174129.01158910@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 17:41:29 -0600 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: Re: objections to "memes" In-Reply-To: <002601bf91e8$a5f68520$5c0bbed4@default> References: <20000317205517.17364.qmail@nw175.netaddress.usa.net> <3.0.1.32.20000318130035.011d943c@popmail.mcs.net> <3.0.1.32.20000319141848.007656f8@popmail.mcs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 10:18 PM 3/19/00 +0100, Kenneth Van Oost wrote:
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2000 9:18 PM
>Subject: Re: objections to "memes"
>> >
>> >
>> >Aaron Lynch wrote
>(SNIP)
>>
>> I should point out that I have also been discussing the terminology
>problem
>> without using analogies to other sciences since at least 1997. Many people
>> who have broad science educations will have learned their standards of
>> terminological clarity from their overall exposure to sciences. Thus it
>> makes sense to point out why "meme" has run into more trouble than new
>> terms introduced to express new theories in other fields. Both quantum
>> chromodynamics and the word "quark" were far more widely accepted among
>> both scientists and lay people when "quark" as a particle name was itself
>> 24 years old back in 1987.
>
><Aaron,with all do respect,you of all people should at least understand that
>memes,taken in a wider view is more treatening stuff than quark-theory.
>Memes and meme-theory are directly involved with our all day life,quarks
>also,but they don't control us like memes do.People are scared to know that
>they are not in control,they feel treatened when their ideas are taking
>over.
>"Memes" ran into trouble,as I wrote it in my last entry,just a few minutes
>ago,
>because people don't see practical applications.We need to focus more on
>that.
>
>Regards,
>
>Kenneth
Thanks, Kenneth.
Regardless of all the ways that others have been using the term "meme," I
agree that my own work on evolutionary epidemiology of ideas (which I have
been calling "memetics") is far more emotionally loaded than quark theory.
However, that very emotional loading has caused all sorts of people with
various evolution of culture theories to insist that various other things
should also be called "memes." In physics, when a concept for "gluon" was
needed in addition to "quark," no one fought to simply expand or modify the
meaning of quark. They did not have the emotional investment to lead them
to do so. With cultural replicators (or non-replicators, another
terminological dispute), we do not see the relatively dispassionate ability
to invent separate words for drastically different kinds of entities.
People afraid of being ignored or left out all want to pile their meanings
onto the word "meme" until the word collapses under the weight of it all.
The word had apparently already collapsed to a level I and others consider
to be scientifically useless by the time of the OED action of 1997.
Assuming that you are a dispassionate scientist concerned with the
development of strong theoretical paradigms rather than terminological
squabbles, it should not matter to you in the least whether I use the term
"meme" in future works.
--Aaron Lynch
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